


For SCIENCE! A Wizard Did It

by PurpleMoon3



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: A Wizard Did It, Crack Treated Seriously, Daedra, Desmond Accidentally's Everything, Gen, Here there be Typos, Just Where DID the Dwemer go?, Lucy Is DONE With Your Shit, Public Indecency is a Capital Offense in Skyrim, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-06-14 03:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15379938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Vidic has a Masters in Jerkwad, Lucy is rightfully concerned, and Desmond learns magic in his sleep.  A daedra gotta do what a daedra gotta do.





	1. It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no shares of IP or company stock for Ubisoft or Bethesda. I haven’t even completed a playthrough of any of the games. (Really, two years after of finally breaking down and getting a copy of Skyrim I still haven’t made it to High Hrothgar. None of my characters can be assed to climb all those damn steps when there are dungeons to dive and loot to be had.) But I like fanfic and I like crossovers. So I tossed this together for the lols.

“There’s a thunderstorm warning today.”  Lucy commented as she checked the weather app on her new and improved and reporting every little click and slide to her new Templar overlards.  Because they were fucking lazy fatasses that sat around demanding results when they could barely understand the most basic functions of the technology they were using.  And now they wanted more of it. Like if they had enough Apples they would get a magical Easy button and the world would be set to rights.

Lucy agreed with their goal, and she had to grudgingly admit the Templars were more likely to achieve world peace with their resources and ruthlessness, but that didn’t mean she agreed with the individuals running things.  Sadly, there was little she could do when Vidic’s desire to do as little technical work as possible and foist maintenance of the Animus off onto her was all that was keeping the former Assassin from being executed and dumped in a river like…

“I don’t pay you for commentary, Mrs. Stillman.”  Vidic sneered as he marched over to Subject Containment.  The door slid open as the electronic locks disengaged and a loud, “Mr. Miles!  Stop lazying about! We’ve got work to do and not nearly enough time to do it in!”

A softer, groggy, “The hell, Doc.  Personal space! And can I at least take a piss first?”

Lucy sighed and started warming up the lounge like device.  To tell the truth, a lot of how it worked was a mystery even to herself.  Based off of ancient designs found in a wrecked Precursor temple, the first two subjects had suffered massive strokes before Vidic realized the system was incompatible with human biology and adjustments had to be made.  Now, instead of having their brains explode the subjects simply had to wait for their sanity to melt out of their ears.

Though certain bloodlines seemed to have more staying power than others.  Subject 16’s, for example, and if the genetic map was accurate Subject 17 too.  

“Good Morning, Desmond.”  Lucy greeted the yawning man as he shuffled over, shepherded by an increasingly impatient Vidic.  “Are you ready to go into the Animus?”

“Like I have a choice?”

She ignored the irritated comment as he laid down on the machine.  “We’ve just about pinpointed the memories we need, but there’s still too much trauma to go in directly. I suggest repeating a memory you’ve already completed to improve synchronization before-”

“Yes, yes!  He understands, now get on with it!”  Vidic grumbled and Lucy had no regrets about switching his decaf beans for the real stuff.  Petty revenge was still revenge.

Lucy powered on the Animus and watched as Subject 17’s eyes abruptly lost focus before closing to narrow slits.  His eyelids continued to twitch as if in REM sleep as his mind tracked along the path of his ancestors. Every now and then other parts of him tensed as muscles that wanted to throw a punch failed, and legs that thought they were climbing walls trembled in aborted effort. 

She was so engrossed in keeping tabs on Subject 17’s increasing erratic vitals -the Animus display showed Desmond-as-Altaïr running across sand colored rooftops as he tried to catch up to his fleeing target- that Lucy Stillman didn’t notice the dark, pregnant clouds that rolled across the sun.

* * *

 

One moment, Desmond was standing all nonchalant against a wall eavesdropping as two men discussed the movements of his latest target.  He wasn’t really paying attention to the words - he’d already experienced this memory once before- but he’d found he enjoyed looking all the little details that usually got missed when he was on a first run.  

A beggar woman managed to get a coin off a passing guard and was slipping it into her shoe as she bowed in thanks.  A small boy was weaving through the crowd, ignored, a dead hare dangling from one hand as his other slipped into and out of pockets.  The two unknowing informats traded jibes and broke apart. Desmond peered through the gaps in the wooden planks above his head. Time was hard to judge in the Animus, sometimes it mattered and sometimes it didn’t, but for this memory playthrough the sun was particularly bright and made Desmond grateful the Assassin’s of old wore white.  Black in the desert would have been murder.

Desmond stifled a giggle at the thought of black-clad ninjas fighting white-robed assassin’s in a great naval battle and pushed off the wall as an alert let him know they were ready to fast forward to the more recent memory, but before he could start down the path to the local bureau the world flashed into loading screen white.  Desmond ran his tongue over his teeth. He didn’t taste purple, and he couldn’t think of anything he had done to cause a de-sync…

* * *

 

Lucy stared in horror as the jumble of code on her workstation.  Abstergo was almost religious when it came to redundancies, and there was a backup generator for the building along with a seperate one for the Animus itself due to the sheer amount of power the machine required.  There was no reason for something as simple as a lightning strike to cause a surge capable of tripping the system into reboot. Abstergo’s surge protector’s had surge protector’s, for christ sakes!

“Ms. Stillman, I do not appreciate these delays!  The board-” Vidic loomed over her shoulder, coffee in hand.

Lucy whirled, rage pushing half forgotten training to the fore.  She spun and knocked the coffee up into the air. The man sputtered as hot liquid soaked through his lab coat to burn the skin beneath.  The blonde caught the coffee mug with her left hand and snatched at Vidic’s tie with the right. She pulled him close and brought the heavy clay mug down swiftly, stopping just short of the man’s temple.  “AND I DON’T APPRECIATE YOUR UGLY FACE!!! NOW GET OVER TO THE DAMN COMPUTER AND HELP ME DO YOUR DAMN JOB BEFORE WE HAVE ANOTHER SUBJECT IN ANOTHER FUCKING COMA.”   

Lucy released Vidic’s tie just as the security detail came through the door.  Her chest lit up with a dozen red dots. The older man stumbled back, his paled cheeks rapidly filling with color as he barked orders at the guards, at her, but he still walked across the room back to his own desk.  Where he had a chair. The ass.

She cleared her throat and turned back to the keyboard attached to the Animus.  She fought through warnings and garbage data to activate the outside interface. The display that should have showed Subject 17’s viewpoint was worryingly blank.  

Thunder rattled the windows.

“Desmond?  Can you hear me?  There was a power surge and the system is trying to reboot.  I’ve been manually canceling it but the cached data won’t last.  You need to de-sync!”

* * *

 

“Warn-warn-warning.”  The computerized voice called, skipping as though it came from a bumped record player.  Each broken syllable was followed the sound of town bells ringing alarm. “Warn-warn-warning.  Emerg-”

“-mond?  Can you-”  Lucy’s voice, interrupted buy a loud roar that was felt as much as it was heard.  Desmond fell to his knees, clapping his hands over his ears. The white world began to gray out as a panicked woman’s voice continued, muffled as though heard from under water.  “De-sync! We can’t know what.... reboots while he’s…”

Black.  Desmond was surrounded by black.  

“Hey!  Lucy!” He called, standing and looking around.  “What was that? Luce!”

Desmond was surrounded by black, and quiet.  He looked down and was only half surprised to see his own hands.  He wiggled his toes, but they couldn’t be seen beneath his sneakers.  It was weird to be wearing his own skin in the Animus instead of Altaïr’s.  Welcome, but weird.

Lacking anything better to do, Desmond started walking.

* * *

 

“We’re losing valuable time.”  Vidic muttered from his computer.  A screen full of code reflected in his glasses as his fingers flew over the keyboard.  “And this doesn’t make any sense. Not a bit.”

Lucy cursed as the system finally gave up and went into full reset mode, and Desmond’s body began to seize.  “FUCK!” She lurched over and spread herself on the unconscious man, desperately trying to keep him from disconnecting from the still booting machine.  “Help!”

The beefy security types, one of which she recognized from the group that had been sent to her apartment to kill her, rushed over and restrained Desmond’s body.  Another forced what looked like a plastic bit in his mouth. Subject 11 had bitten through her own tongue during a session.

As suddenly as the attack came it stopped.  Desmond relaxed, and the screen above him flashed to brilliance as the computerized woman announced, “Due to an improper shutdown, Animus is now entering SafeMode.  Loading earliest uncorrupted memory.”

“Earliest memory?”  Lucy muttered as she rocked back on her heels and combed through the DNA strand shown on her interface.  It was unspooling for perusal with Desmond’s known ancestor’s marked along with their years. The clearest genetic memories were always from immediate family: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  After that chance of genetic corruption increased, but it was always minimal. “SafeMode? I didn’t know there was a safemode.”

Before the globalization of modern day most people were born, lived, married, and died within the same fifty miles.  Cousin’s married and had children, ensuring the shared memories of their ancestors were cleaned up and passed down. But on that same token the further back they in the DNA strand the machine went Abstergo’s database became more and more unable to find matches.  There simply were no records of the first man, of names and places, and no one cared about a farmer who lived two thousand years ago who never did anything but spread his seed.

Lucy watched as the Animus’s dove into Subject 17’s DNA, dove past Ezio and Altaïr.  A thousand years ago, two thousand, three thousand… past anything that should have been usable.

* * *

 

Finally, after what seemed like hours of walking aimlessly, Desmond saw something other than himself.  A gray mist that was practically white against the dark backdrop of his surroundings slowly crawled toward him.  It would have been foreboding had Desmond not been bored out of his mind. He picked up his pace, and he could vaguely hear what sounded like a chorus of manly man getting psyched up for a football game the closer he got.

Whatever they were singing was not English, and quickly became accompanied by drums and horns.  Desmond found that a little odd, because Lucy had said the Animus was set to translate everything, but then this loading screen was black and the music did lift his spirits some.  There was an infectious energy to it all. Mist crept up his legs like a rapidly growing creeper, white consumed the blackness, and then Desmond was forced to blink as he felt the sun once more.  

It was just as bright in this memory as it had been in Damascus.  

He was not in Damascus.

He stopped examining what looked suspiciously like pine trees and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Lucy.” He said, he suspected, uselessly. “Why the hell am I naked?”

An eagle screeched above him as if appreciating its view.

Desmond sighed and lamented his lack of pockets as he headed toward the distant sound of a river.  River’s meant people, and people meant clothes. If all else failed he could probably steal some. He didn’t feel any bruises on this body, it felt rather like his own body, but it was possible great-great-great-fuckton of greats grandpa had gotten robbed by bandits and that was why he didn’t have anything.

Unless this particular ancestor was a nudist?  Was he in a nudist colony? “God, I hope not.” Desmond whined to the air.  “It’s fucking cold out here.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story runs on the premise that Those Who Came Before are the Dwemer who fucked off out of Nirn/Oblivion using super special tech after they realized that mutating and enslaving an entire other species of elf to use as slave labor was probably not the most popular thing to do. Didn't stop them from trying a similar thing once they got to Earth, though.


	2. The Better Part of Valor

“It’s colder than a Templar’s tit out here.”  Desmond grumbled as he jogged along the river bank, rubbing his arms.  It wasn’t a very large river, Desmond mused as he exhaled heat onto his hands, more like a stream.  A very fast moving stream. Full of demon trout that ate fingers. 

The demon trout weren’t the first thing to tip the naked man off that something might be wrong with the Animus; simply the latest.  Every step of bare skin against hard packed earth and gray stone sent a skittering of sensation up his bones, from heel to hip, and when hardy grasses that punched up between the rocks brushed his ankles he shivered as each individual blade made its presence known.  If he closed his eyes and concentrated he could hear the rapid beat of dragonfly wings and the echoing bellows of elk. “Seriously! Lucy! Doc! What the fuck am I supposed to be doing here?!” 

Usually when he was in the Animus there was a certain level of separation between himself and his ancestor.  It was only when he fully synchronized, concentrating on passively riding along with Altaïr instead of going with his own reactions and instincts, that the scent of the incense burning in the bureau penetrated.  For the briefest of moments he would forget he was Desmond, cult escapee, and the blood that speckled his cheek was like warm drops of wine. Then the Animus voiceover would intrude like a particularly unenthused god and his own angel in white would bring him back to the mortal world.

It was all very Infernocian.  Now, as he traveled along, there was no other presence he could use for direction.  No black robed teacher to deliver clear, concise goals. Every move Desmond made was _Desmond’s_.  It was rather liberating, in a way, but he would have happily traded the freedom for some clothes.  Or a HUD. That was another one of the things that was different. There was no map or synchronization bar floating in the corner of his eyes.  

There was a transparent _thing_ that he could see if he squinted at the air just above his eye line, so that lent itself to Animus mechanics, but the symbols kept moving as he followed the river.  Some of them such as the chicken foot thing had faded out over time, others seemed to grow into opaque plaques that overshadowed the bar, but all were unhelpful when he didn’t know what the little tiara looking things meant, or curly mustached man.  Then there were the rumpled hoods that seemed to be all over the place. Bandit camps, maybe? At least the towers seemed self explanatory, but did he really want to approach a fortified castle with his junk hanging out? 

What he needed was a farmhouse.  “Or a mill. You’d think there would be loads of mills on a stream like this, but no.  The demon trout probably scared everyone off.”

* * *

Lucy pressed her hip against the Animus, one eye on Subject 17’s vitals, and listened to the tech give his report to Vidic.  The man was obviously nervous as he stood at parade rest. From her own workstation -still without chair!- beside the Animus she could see his fingers fiddling with some sort of charm bracelet wrapped around his wrist.

“A bird.”  Vidic’s voice dropped the words like flaming boulders.  “We are making history! We are changing the world!  And you are blaming an insignificant ball of feathers and air on your own incompetence?  The best Subject we’ve ever had could have died! I should have you fired. I should have you _shot_.”

Vidic’s eyes narrowed at the nametag stitched into the techies shirt.  “ _Harry_.”

“With all due respect, sir.”  The technician stood his ground.  “Maybe if you weren’t constantly telling us to ignore the warnings being thrown up by the monitoring programs we would have caught the intrusion earlier.  And, to be specific, it wasn’t just a bird. From the remains we found tangled in some exposed wiring it was a _tichodroma muraria_. 

“Our best theory is that it came in through one of the vents on the roof to escape the storm, slipped by the fans during a rest period, and then proceeded to flip the fuck out.  The Animus’ grid wasn’t the only one affected, _sir_.” 

Vidic’s face turned an interesting shade of pale before he turned his glare on her and made a dismissive, shooing motion.  It just wasn’t his day, was it? 

Lucy shifted her weight off of the Animus and gave it’s occupant and awkward pat on the leg.  They still couldn’t get the display to show anything purple and orange static, but whatever memory Desmond was experiencing had seemed to calm down.  His breathing was even, his heart beating just a tad faster than his usual resting rate, and his expression was almost peaceful. For a born Assassin, he was actually rather cute like that.

Which was good, as all the diagnostics she and Vidic had run showed that the Animus’ ability to balance the neurotransmitters responsible for keeping Subjects from flailing out of the machine while synchronized had definitely been disabled.  Lucy pinched the inner flesh of her cheek between her teeth in thought as she walked to the side room and its coffee maker. They couldn’t figure out if the lack of GABA and glycine was a bug or a feature of the SafeMode.

If only Vidic would let her see some of the original Precursor designs… well.  

Lucy flicked on the coffee maker for a fresh pot, and as the machine bubbled with the sound of water moving through super heated pipes she climbed up on the counter and pressed her ear to an air vent.  The technician was continuing his report. 

_“Crystals burned out, it was an add-hoc job to get the damn things to talk to our computers anyway.  Sir. You’re trying to get Lion to run on an Atari, with a fucking PC as your go between. And we are the Atari.”_

“ _I don’t need excuses, the Board does not need excuses.  If any of Sixteen’s garbage is accurate -the slightest mad scribble- then we don’t have time for them.  I don’t care if you have to work ‘round the clock! Fix it!”_ Vidic’s yell was followed by the clatter of a clipboard slamming against a table.   _“Damn courtesans...we were so close!”_

_“It’s going to take at least a week to synthesize more crystals.  That isn’t choice, it is physics.”_

_“And why don’t you have replacements available?  I’m sure_ you’re _easily replaced.”_

_“What is it with you people and death threats?  If you want to shoot someone shoot the dicks in Engineering who keep taking things out of Inventory and not telling anyone.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, some dumbass on floor two locked themselves out of their computer and everyone else is busy trying to untangle the mess that is the R &D and Accounting databases.” _

Lucy quickly hopped off the counter and pretended to examine her nails as Harry the Crystal Guy walked past the breakroom and out the door, muttering to himself as his thumb skimmed over the keypad on his cellphone.  Vidic followed soon after. He poked his head in, sneer in place, and took a tentative sniff of the air. An expression that was the closest he ever got to pleased crossed his face. “Ah. So you aren’t completely useless, Ms. Stillman.”

He crossed the room to pour himself a fresh cup.

Lucy fixed herself some ramen.  As she ate it she considered how best to approach Vidic on the subject of Subject 17’s physical needs while he was stuck in the Animus’ SafeMode.  As much as the scientist threatened his experiments with comas he’d rarely done it after the first few early deaths. Lucy grinned into her noodles.

Fucker probably never considered the long term logistics.  Desmond’s body was still going to need nutrition. And it wasn’t like he could pee while unconscious, not without making an unholy mess on top of the Animus.  And while Vidic was working out who to give clearance on the Animus project so that they could deal with Subject 17’s sponge baths, Lucy could dive into the already screwy databases and find out what the hell the crystals they were talking about were.

After all, if the Databases were as confused and tangled as they said it wasn't like they could blame her for stumbling upon a classified file or two while doing her own job.  Right?

* * *

After the second boulder decided to grow legs and dump Desmond on his ass, he in turn decided to put a bit of distance between himself and the death stream.  The living rocks weren’t very fast, and he has a hunch that they would go excellent with butter, but where normal kids got Disney and Sesame Street to teach them social mores Assassin brats received the original Grimm and exercises in threat assessment.  When to fight, and when to fly. 

And he’s pretty sure when it comes down to a contest between his bare fist and what looks like Mr. Krabby’s unholy cousin his fist is going to be on the losing side.  The flash of _pain_ and _red_ that swarms his vision like a fever when the massive pincer grazed his calf is no small contributor to the change in plans.

It was, Desmond thought, a good one.  The number of trees thin the higher he climbs, but the individual trunks thicken along with bunches of wildflowers that like the demon trout and the ninja crabs have grown beyond nature’s boundaries and into outright bushes.  Pollen heavy shrubs that reach his hip are decorated with azure butterflies. The things weave through the air like more dedicated patrons of Bad Weather at last call, stumbling from red to blue to prickly purple.

“Sweet.”  Desmond grinned, while scraping mud off his feet and onto still scraggly grass.  The flower colonies stop right at a long track of bare earth: a road. It’s a dirt road, aside from the occasional masonry that peeks out from the hard packed brown, but all roads lead to Rome.   _Civilization_.  The sight of it was enough of a relief to the professional runaway that he simply stood for a moment, breathing in crisp, cool mountain air, briefly pondering why the navigation bar doesn’t mark a fucking road.  “It just seems like it would be an important landmark, is all. But then, how would that work? There’s got to be some map function I need to unlock…” 

Desmond tilted his head back, eyes squinting up at a sky dark with heavy gray clouds.  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “ LUCY! MAP! PLEASE!”

There was no robotic warning about a desync, and Lucy’s soft, calming tone didn’t whisper encouragement or hints in his ear.  Maybe the Animus was overheating again and causing glitches. It was probably the Doc’s fault, being too busy watching guys sleep to pay attention to any equipment not in his pants.  Trailing that thought a few birds give him a _look_ , and a butterfly lifted off of a flower to make a confused circuit of his head.  Desmond absently batted at before blinking in surprise as it stiffened to drop to the ground. Dead.  

Opps?

“Sorry, dude.”  Desmond rumbled under his breath as he crouched down to examine the patterns on the wings.  They were varying shades of blue with black tracings. Lighter tones near the middle trapped sunlight like stained glass on a church.  There was a surprising amount of weight to the little insect when he picked it up. The wings felt strangely thick, too, and remind him of the sheets of sugar glass he’d worked with at one of many under-the-table part time jobs.  

His mouth _watered_ , which he didn’t think was possible in the Animus, but before he could fall into the instinctual need to shove the dead insect in his mouth something flew over his bowed head at such speed his skin shivered from the breeze.  The flying mass broke against a pile of stacked stones, causing the topmost one to fall off, and the scent that tainted the air from its passage wasn’t too different from battery acid. 

The butterfly dropped back to the earth, forgotten, as Desmond reflexively covered his mouth at the sudden need to puke. The mass of wet _bubbled_.

Desmond wiped his lips with a thumb and turned, crouched low to keep the flower bushels as cover, but all efforts at stealth scattered as his heart rate skyrocketed.  Dark eyes widened. A primal, terrified keening burst from his mouth at the sight of the monstrosity. Oversized pedipalps that could have doubled as legs themselves reared up.  Desmond’s thoughts skittered to a standstill. “A-A-Acromantula?!”

Red, overwhelming, warning red filled his vision.   _Eagle Vision._ Did he still have it, if he was not living as Altaïr? Desmond took a breath, dipping into training he’d thought he’d buried. Fight or Flight.  Survive. The Templars are out to get you. This was not a fight Desmond could win. It was not a fight he wanted to _fight_.  

The runaway Assassin scrambled backward, narrowly dodging another mass of congealed, acidic puke. It splattered against a tree.  As he ran, a stray droplet landed on his backside. A spark of pain flared up his spine, and that _red_ came again, lesser, different, floating just out of sight like the frame of glasses.  Desmond stumbled for a moment before catching himself and continuing on. “Off the road,”  he panted, tucking and rolling to avoid a third acid shot. Something sharp dug into his back left it screaming.  “Gotta get off the road. Need more cover.” 

As eight legs speed up, pounding in to the ground to follow him, Desmond had the fanciful thought that they sounded like a small army chasing him.

Desmond leapt over a fallen log, bare feet crashing down amongst deadfall, only vaguely aware of the slip of shimmering green that had joined the red in the corner of his eye.  He was even less aware of how with every shuddering breath the green lessened as though in a countdown.

* * *

“Goddammit!”  Was the latest curse to loose from Lucy’s lips as she watched Subject 17’s continue to increase.  78 bpm. 85 bpm. A lick sheen of sweat covered Desmond’s face and neck as the guards strained to hold his body in place.  Mouth open, chest heaving, back arching away from the table, and eyes closed… he looked like he was in the grip of some kind of night terror.  Desmond looked like Subject 16 in the days before the older man became… unusable. 102 bpm. “Desmond, Desmond can you hear me? You need to calm down.  Please, calm down.”

“This can’t continue, Ms. Stillman.”  Vidic snarled, and for the first time there was an underlying tone of uncertainty in the other man’s tone.  He had unlocked a drawer on his desk and was removing glass bottles with various labels. “I’m going to administer a relaxant.  Hold him still! How complicated is it to restrain a simple minded fool? Ms. Stillman, go get the restraints. I had hoped not to need them but-”

Subject 17 collapsed, limp as a ragdoll, as Lucy’s workstation beeped an alert.  “Doctor!”

Vidic stalked over, the pockets of his lab coat clinking.  His hand clenched a syringe as if he wished it were the handle of a knife.  “What is it now?”

Lucy showed him the flashing alert on her screen.  The Subject’s stamina, whatever that was, had been depleted and SafeMode engaged a forced rest.    

* * *

Desmond panted as he walked at a snail’s pace, muscles trembling from the aftershocks of the spasm that tripped him up mid-run sent him crashing down a hill.  The _green_ flashed just out of sight, and Desmond got the distinct impression that he was being told off by a frontierland school marm.

He’d barely managed to loose the acromantula before his body seized from overexertion.  Desmond hadn’t noticed at first, what with running for his life and sanity, but the cold had gradually leeched from the air to be replaced with a sulfuric warmth.  A low mist that wasn’t at all creepy clung to the ground. 

“Not a memory.”  Desmond tucked himself under the shelter of a basalt overhang.  His legs ached and he couldn’t quite catch his breath. It was just like the seven mile run on the Farm, only he wasn’t getting yelled at for not finishing in a William approved time.  “No… fucking way… this is a memory.”

He stared at the dark rock above him.  A thick, bulging, vein like root hung over the lip of his hiding place like the blood plants in _War of the Worlds_.  Desmond rolled onto his side with a sigh, back pressed against the volcanic earth.  “Yeah, that’s not creepy. Nope.”

It was warm, almost too warm, but wonderful on his strained muscles.  It was too real, Desmond thought, and he’d died as Altaïr with water filling his lungs in a light pressure before everything went to a white loading screen.  He’d watched his own insides spill on the ground before he’d gotten the hang of letting his ancestor lead during a fight, and even fucked up a free fall bad enough to crack his neck.

Those had all been dull, distant sensations.  A crick in the neck. A cramp in his stomach. Phantom pain.  He had never once felt tired in Altaïr’s body.

“But this isn’t Altaïr’s.  This is mine.” Desmond held his hands up to face, tongue flicking out to trace the scar on his lips.  He’d scrapped his palms at some point; he didn’t remember.  His whole body was covered in scrapes and bruises from the dash through the forest.  He curled his hands into fists. “ _Mine_.”

It was clear someone had fucked up.  He was in some sort of post-apocalyptic setting if the oversized, radioactive spiders were any indication.  

Desmond very vaguely recalled one of the patrons at Bad Weather ranting about how Abstergo Entertainment’s unveiling at DragonCon was a blatant rip off of Oculus VR.  Was that what this was? Had the Animus wires gotten crossed and somehow got plugged into a game?

Desmond tried to stifle his laughter with his fists.  A quick flash of Eagle Vision cut through the fog and revealed the outlined figure of a sabercat lapping at a pool of frothing water.  Even after blinking away the gray of shadow and intent a bright dot of red remained among the floating bar of symbols. Carefully, Desmond crawled out of his hiding place.  He smiled as he crouched, sneaking along, mindful of the cat that hadn’t yet detected him. Mindful of lessons learned hiking around the Black Hills -and how did it take him so long to realize that was what everything seemed modeled after- Desmond circled around the edge of the hot springs.

If he was stuck in a game, maybe as long as it took to reach the end, that meant the headache inducing memories of his ancestor were inaccessible.  Which meant the Doc’s precious time was going to be wasted. Boo-fucking-hoo. 

Desmond checked the status of the sabercat.  When the red dot disappeared, one moment bright and there the next gone like it had never been, he deemed it safe enough to straighten from his crouch and taken another look around.  Fucking up a memory as Altair had been uncomfortable. Here, with every sensation so clear and vivid, he did not want to risk finding out what it felt like to have his face clawed off.

Even if a game over it might boot him out and back to reality with Vidic's obnoxious coma threats.

There was a half circle of stone monoliths a few yards away that caught his attention, and as Desmond walked over to them one of the symbols on the navbar grew in prominence until he placed a foot on the raised platform.  Moist moss squished between his toes as he passed between oddly angled stones. There was intelligence behind the design, obvious from the hole bored into the top of the centermost stone, but from a distance it had been hard to tell.  With all the weathering the leaning columns could have been the remains of petrified trees. 

“Just more evidence under the radiated world theory.”  Desmond muttered as he inspected the holey stone and the metal bands wrapped around it.  The metal was dark, almost rusted, but strangely solid. Beneath and around the iron like bands tribal-like lines and curves had been carved, oddly clear despite the lichen clinging to other parts of the rocks.  

Desmond reached out to brush a bit of dirt off the carvings, his fingers tracing the image of what a fat genie might look like, and felt pure _bliss_ travel up his arm.  He gasped as is circled around his heart before traveling further down.  His head swam in a soft cottony cloud of _blue_.  Desmond went to his knees as if worshipping the stone and the strange bubble man on it.  

His palms pressed against the stone idol.  Light, pure and white and beautiful, shone from between cracks in the granite.  Finally, something that felt _good_. 

“ _Yes_.”  Desmond hissed, his eyes drooping shut as everything became comfortingly warm and dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, writing a single character alone turns out to be pretty damn difficult for me. There's no one for them to bounce off of. And then this chapter still managed to be longer than intended. Not sure when the next update will be as I'm off to work on other things, but when it does happen Desmond will finally get some clothes. 
> 
> And become persona non grata among the Imperial faction. But at least with the Atronach stone he can now take a fireball to the face and keep going!


	3. Treason, Regicide, and Public Indecency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Greetings! Salutations! Welcome! Now go away. Leave. Run. Or Die.” - Sheogorath, Daedric Prince of Madnes

Desmond woke to a tickling sensation on his cheek.  He groaned and slapped the unseen fingers away, a sarcastic comment regarding a certain man’s lack of a love life dying in the runaway’s mouth as years of paranoia based training cleared the fog of sleep.  Was he…? Desmond peered through the fog of computer generated reality and tried not to think of the oversized insect that was now wobbling on its back, the many segmented legs kicking futilely in the air.  He _was_.

“Huh.”  Desmond grunted as he assimilated the new bit of knowledge. Falling asleep hadn’t kicked him out of the Animus.  Though, he supposed that made sense. If unconsciousness was a disqualifier then Vidic wouldn’t be threatening him with drug induced comas and he’d have woken to his confinement in his Abstergo issued bed and not, oh, after being jacked into _funhouse mirror animus world._

Desmond shivered, and not from the morning chill that dewed against his skin, but at his own very recent memory of a shadowed world and faceless crowds.  Uncanny valley didn’t even begin to describe it… but that thought led to another. Lucy had never let him experience Altaïr’s downtime. They’d always skipped over the memories of what his ancestor did in the bureau between killings.  For all he knew Malik was right and the guy cried himself to sleep in a corner, mourning his mistakes, because a couple hours of REM wasn’t what the doc was interested in. If the scientist had his way _Desmond_ wouldn’t get any sleep, either.

At least Lucy had put her foot down about that. Subject 17 was subject number _seventeen_ for a reason.  Desmond did not need sleep deprivation on top of whatever fuckery the animus was doing to his brain as it pulled out memories. But it begged the question - do electronic Assassins dream?  “Maybe they count feathers. Seems appropriately morbid.”

Desmond squinted up the sky, took idle note of the two moons fleeing the rising sun’s presence, and stood up.  He twined his fingers behind his back and stretched, sighing in contentment as his shoulders popped and his spine aligned.  Animus or no Animus, sleeping on the ground sucked. 

At least it was warm.

“Where to, where to…”  Desmond muttered to himself.  His gaze flicked up the navbar.  There was a castle thing he might head toward if he climbed up the far slope, but he still lacked pants and after his mad run from the acromantula he suspected he looked like a crazy person.  The smears of volcanic mud and plant matter clinging to his skin after the impromptu nap probably didn’t help. The bartender frowned as he considered the symbol that drifted into sight as he turned his head to survey the mist strewn landscape.  

It looked very familiar, but very wrong at the same time.  Communists? Was there a commune of communists - “ _Try saying that five time fast._ ”- over the hill?  Desmond took a moment to curse his father and the Farm and cults the world over.  All he could remember about the Russian Revolution was that Lenin had supposedly been an Assassin and the filthy, dirty Templars had poisoned him to place their own puppet in power.  Personally, he’d always found it strange because he was raised in the hopes of making an American Assassin, and the American creed was all about Freedom Fuck Yeah, but Americans hated communists?  Communism meant cooperation. Sharing. People, who hopefully would help out a guy down on his clothing options and not fill him full of arrows for sexual harassment or something.

“Pants.”  Desmond decided with a flash of Eagle Vision to confirm lack of nearby predators.  He slapped at a bug that came too close to his junk. “People equal pants.”

Desmond hopped off the stone dais and started walking.  Basalt crunched under his bare, strangely undamaged feet.  The man took stock of himself as he trudged along the edges of the volcanic bowl.  Most of the cuts were healed, seemingly as if they never happened, and only a few yellowing bruises remained from a fall he’d taken while avoiding the ever more accurate shots of acromantula spit.  

Desmond gave an experimental poke at one of the bruises and hissed.  There was no flare up of red, no danger to his health, but damn if it hadn’t hurt.  The Animus wasn’t supposed to hurt like that. For a brief moment Desmond wondered. Was he in a coma?  Like, a coma-coma and not just stuck in the machine? Had the Doc and Lucy’s experiment finally fried his brain, and that was the real reason they’d kidnapped some poor bartender without a proper paper trail?  Not for some bullshit bloodline, but because SCIENCE! and the need for an untraceable guinea pig? 

That sounded way more likely than an probable shadow war between Templars and Assassins over some ancient alien bauble bullshit.  They made movies about mad scientists all the time, and Vidic sounded awful close to Victor. Hell, they both even tried to bring dead men to life with machines! 

Desmond chuckled dryly at the thought of himself on a slab, arms raised straight in the air as Doctor Vidic screamed, “ _It’s alive!  It’s alive!”_

Lucy of course would be playing the alluring and super sexy Ignorina.  Twisting knobs. Pulling levers. That sort of thing.

The morning mist was surprisingly thick, and Desmond took to flashing his ancestor’s eyes every few steps just so he could see more than three feet ahead of himself.  The lack of predators after the previous day’s over abundance of them was troubling. Rather than follow a narrow footpath, he scrambled up an embankment and almost missed the faint echo of metals under the pitter of loose dirt.  Desmond crouched and held still, senses primed. The mist had lightened considerably once he was out of the sulfuric spring area, but it was still an all encompassing shroud on the world. Unfortunately, as is implied in the name eagle vision didn’t help with hearing.         

It was a dull clank, irregular if numerous, and vaguely familiar.  Desmond squinted up at the sun that peeked around a break in the mountains.  There was a dark train of movement in the shadows cast between massive formations of rock and wood.  The veil of fog still obscured most of the communist settlement, but he those were definitely roofs and chimneys poking up over the mist like sailboats in a harbor.

Desmond took one step, activated his ancestor’s Sight, then another.  He padded, shoulders hunched, toward the sounds of muffled metal. Through the filter of the eagle vision he could make out a line of crouched bodies gradually vanishing into the underbrush.  For a moment, foot hovering over a well worn path, he hesitated. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Desmond. They aren’t real, anyway. None of this is.” 

Some part of himself he usually ignored, that was gradually coming to sound like a certain combative Dai, drawled.  _Nothing is true, novice_.

Throwing caution to the wind, the naked man started to jog toward the first people he’d seen in what felt like days.  He didn’t want to lose them. As he closed in on the rapidly vanishing individuals he caught sight of gleaming silver as armor caught in the light of the rising sun.  That was good, right? Armor meant warriors, which meant an Assassin was right where he was supposed to be.

Right? 

He needed some armor of his own.  Maybe he was supposed to buy it from them?  Of course, it wasn’t like he had any money, and even if he did where was he supposed to keep it?  His non-existent pockets? It wasn’t like the Animus came with an inventory screen. As the clinks and clanks of rustling chainmail and boiled leather grew more sporadic Desmond kicked caution to the curb and began to sprint.  If he lost them, and with the lack of footprints in this memory that was a real possibility, who knew when he would be able to make human contact again?

“HEY!”  Desmond bellowed, waving his arms, running at the group of what appeared to be roman legionaries and determinedly not thinking about what else was waving in the wind right at that moment.  Instead he focused on the design of the armor the soldiers wore and what it told him of the time period, which could basically be summed up as before Altaïr. “HEY! ARMY GUYS! HOLD UP A MINUTE!”

Desmond grinned as the armored figures paused.  Success! He slowed his own mad dash as the warning spark of green flared in his awareness.  One of the soldiers even broke from the rest of the group, standing up, and that was definitely a white hood he wore concealing his face.  Assassin’s hood? 

“Finally.”  Desmond muttered under his breath, forcefully keeping a pleasant expression on his face.  He wasn’t a crazy wild man, no sir. Just a citizen in need of some help. The hooded man raised an arm in a really awkward ‘calm down’ motion.  

Desmond was just close enough to make out the absolutely ridiculous cheekbones on the assassin before a bolt of _goddamn motherfucking lightning_ arched out from the man’s hands and tossed Desmond head over heels.  Heart racing, the younger man landed on his backside while skidding hard enough over dry earth he wouldn’t be surprised if his entire left side was one giant strawberry.  And yet, the brunette bartender barely felt the pain of electricity coursing through his veins as that self same pain left thrill of elation behind in form of blue shimmering into his awareness.

And, oh, his hands.  They _tingle_.  It was like he was holding a wild bird in the cage of his fingers, delicate wings flapping in its eagerness to escape.  The hooded brother was frowning and staring at his own hands as if disappointed at his inability to smite with lightning.  Desmond rolled his tingling hands into fists, his preferred form of fighting and snarled: “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?” 

He had a split second to hold still and check his eagle vision -red, the brother and the soldiers had suddenly gone from a safe, neutral blue to red- before he was dodging another volley of electricity. He was half tempted to stand and take it -it had hurt but in a good way- but his navbar was filling with a sea of red that was enemies and not health.  So many. Too many. What he was seeing wasn’t the lone platoon he’d initially thought but a small army. “What the hell? I’M UNARMED YOU DICKBAG!”

“Silence, fool!”  The other assassin hissed as he drew a dagger from a hidden sheath and sprinted toward Desmond.  “Or I shall silence you!”

Instinct built from days spent in another’s skin took over in a rush of adrenaline.  Desmond barely heard the distant startle of horses, of incomprehensible cursing, of blades clashing over the white static filling his battered ears.  A blast like dynamite went off somewhere higher up the mountain and was answered by an earthy grumble. The bartender sidestepped away from the false-brother’s attack and grabbed him by his outstretched wrist, twisting it.  The other man dropped the glimmering dagger, white teeth bare as thin lips twisted into a smirk, and unleashed another wave of lightning that traveled from his captured hand though Desmond’s arm to blast his chest.

Once again Desmond went flying, limbs spasming, vision clouding over with a mix of red and blue and green all screaming warnings.  A pair of horses without riders, one with a bloodier saddle than the other, leapt over his prone form and continued into the mist. Desmond noted the familiar taste of copper in his mouth and shuddered as a stray arrow burrowed into the dirt right beside his head.  The hooded man was advancing with a snarl on a nominally aristocratic face. 

“Weeks,”  He hissed, energy arcing over his hands.  “Weeks we spent planning this ambush, losing battles and planting false documents, all to get all the rebels in one divines damned spot, and you and your big fucking mouth _ruin it_.”

Dazed, and feeling rather irritated, Desmond concentrated on breathing.  He wanted to punch hood guy in his ugly ass face. 

A shout rippled over the air,   _For Ulfric!  For TALOS!_  the cry picked up and echoed until it burrowed into Desmond’s chest like the booted foot grinding into his blackened hand. _FOR SKYRIM!_

“Mad, human filth.”  The hooded man sneered as the dangerous crackling shifted to a soft, quiet gold.  “ _Weak._  But don’t you worry, we have so much to talk about.” 

The golden light felt warm, and good, and every part of Desmond’s battered body wanted to lean into it.  Except, Desmond had never been very good at doing what was expected of him. Desmond ducked his head and rolled, the charred skin of his hand screaming as he ripped it from the man’s boots. He pushed the aches down, his panicking thoughts down, and surged up from the ground as a man possessed.  A hysterical thought threatened to giggle from his lips. WWAD. What Would Altaïr Do. He hadn’t seriously trained since his was _sixteen_ and planning to outwit an entire goddamn cult specializing in murder and espionage. 

But he wasn’t in his body, was he?  This was Animus, which meant his _mind_ .  He didn’t need muscle here, only the memory of it.  In a move that was part instinct, part newly born habit, and all panic Desmond thrust out his hand as Altaïr had done a dozen times before.  It was a sharp, sudden movement that would have plunged a blade into a man’s breast and spilled his heart’s blood. Desmond had no blade, but when he dipped his shoulder to avoid another lightning wreathed strike and slammed his palm into the hooded man’s chest _fire_ bloomed like a deadly flower.

“Holy shit.”  Dark brown eyes went wide the flames caught greedily on well oiled and maintained leather and chain, climbing up to devour the cloth hood like it was a forgotten marshmallow.  The scent of burning hair and flesh coated the back of his throat. He wanted to hurl.

The burning figure flailed, briefly.  Desmond kept away from the man as he lunged, running through the clashing red-blue soldiers toward the now distant hot springs.  He wouldn’t make it. It was too far, and the man crumpled to one knee, keening, flaming fingers gradually slowing their grasping motions as death crawled toward him.  

It’s not right, Desmond thought, as steel from the clashing battle sung all around him.  People in blue tunics fought roman soldiers in red, some wounded fought on and others fled, a shout that caused bodies to fly and Desmond’s bones to throb should have drawn more of his attention than it did.  When Altaïr killed it was quick, efficient, _clean..._ but this… this was a _war_.

He’d left the Assassin’s for a reason.

Desmond knew the shouts, the screams, and tang of ozone and taste of blood _were not_ real, but at the same time it was all _too_ real.  

Shivering from the aftershocks of the lightning strikes, Desmond moved with the sword swing of a roman woman and flipped her onto her back.  He plucked a steel dagger from the sheath at her waist as he did so. Mechanically, he cut her throat before she could recover and run him through.  The dagger, similarly to the one the hooded man had wielded, shone with traceries of light as it drank in the soldier’s blood. Somehow, Desmond’s body hurt less.  He was reaching for the satchel and a feather that wasn’t there when the pommel of a warhammer cracked against the back of skull.

* * *

 

Hours later Desmond woke up in the back of a cart.  It was a particularly strong bump in the poorly maintained road that snapped him to awareness as the wooden wheels of the wagon jumped and jittered.  His body lurched forward and to the side, away from something far softer than the scratchy thing he was wearing, but when he tried to catch himself his bound hands did nothing but bump numbly against the far side of the wagon.  He stared at the mass of rope that went seemingly halfway up his forearm and the pale fingers poking from beneath it. He tried to wiggle one.

It moved.  Pins and needles shot up his arm.

Someone snorted to his left.  “Hey, you. You’re finally awake.”  

“Not really.”  Desmond grumbled with perfect sincerity and peered at the blond man looking down at him.  He was one of the blue guys, and his hands were also bound, if not so heavily as Desmond’s own.  A quick glance told him everyone but the driver of their happy wagon had their hands tied, though only one guy had the extra special treatment of being gagged as well.  Since Desmond could now throw fire, somehow, maybe gagged guy spat it?

Gagged guy’s laughter at Desmond’s comment was swallowed by the gag, but when he turned to watch a passing red ride by their cart his shoulders rose and fell in a familiar, rapid rhythm.

Blondie started talking again, though most of the humor had left his expression.  “You were trying to cross the border to Imperial lands, right? Walked right into their ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.”

“Damn you Stormcloaks…”  The supposed thief growled.  “Before you came along the Empire was nice and lazy.”

Desmond raised his arms to wipe the side of his mouth against his new-old shirt.  It was the same dirty yellow as the thief’s. The sole brunette on the paddy-wagon shook his head negatively.  “I wasn’t trying to cross anything. I, uh, had gotten robbed and thought the Empire would, you know, help.”

Looking around, there were several wagons in the procession filled with a hodgepodge of bound men and women.  Many of them, like the oddly friendly blond, still wore armor. _Red team must have been in a rush._

“Ah.  So it _was_ you that yelled the warning!  For that, friend, you have my eternal gratitude.  These imperial dogs may have caught us, but the supply wagons surely have made it to Windhelm by now… that rockslide may have stopped our retreat, but it also prevented _their_ pursuit.”  

“Shut up back there!”  Their armored keeper turned with a glare that morphed into a mirthless smile.  “I don’t know what you’ve got be happy about, Ralof. We got your bear, even with your new friend’s help, and when he dies your rebellion will die with him.”

A muffled string of incomprehensible words slithered out of gagged guy even as the now named blond exploded.  “Watch your tongue! You are speaking of Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King!”

“I serve no _king_.”  The driver turned back around, smug.

“Ulfric?  The Jarl of Windhelm?”  The thief stuttered, antagonism melting into disbelief as he stared at the gagged man across from him.  “Y-You’re the leader of the rebellion. But, i-if they’ve captured you… oh gods, where are they taking us?”

“I don’t know where we’re going, but Sovngarde awaits.”

Gagged man, Ulfric, rolled his eyes.  Desmond sat up and tried to ignore the tingling in his fingers as he shifted to sit back on the roughly hewn benches built into the wagons.  He eyed Ralof, the thief, and the man with the furred coat that had been warm and soft and…goddamnit. He’d drooled on the guys shoulder while he was asleep, hadn’t he?  Yes. He could see a clump of Ulfric’s mantle sticking together with spit. 

“All I wanted was some pants.”  Desmond sighed and hung his head, elbows on knees.  “I didn’t want to start a war or light anyone on fire.  I just wanted some goddamn motherfucking pants. But, I guess, one out of three isn’t bad.”

Long, loud guffaws burst out of Ralof’s mouth.  He slammed his foot on the bottom of the wagon, rattling it even worse than the road did.  “That’s the spirit, friend!”

“I said shut up!”

Ralof and Ulfric shared a look before they both rolled their eyes and Desmond felt a furred boot nudge his shin.  “Hey. What village are you from, friend?” 

"Desmond." Desmond sighed, and gave them the kind of smile he gave his customers at Bad Weather.  “My name is Desmond Miles. I’m from Brooklyn.”

Vidic was probably watching all this and trying to get any useful information he possibly could.  Even if the runaway didn’t agree with or even like his dad’s cult, he wasn’t going to give them up.  Desmond wasn’t big on television, mostly because he couldn’t afford it, but he’d seen enough news to know how cults that got interloped ended.  

William was the type to order suicides rather than surrender. 

“Brook-linn.  Is it in Cyrodil?”

Desmond just nodded his head, casting his eyes to the horse thief.  “What about you?”

The man jerked once before softly replying, “Rorikstead.”

They fell into companionable silence as their guards called out and they were taken through a gate.  Some dick who thought he was funnier than he was, or drunker than he should be, took pot shots at them with arrows and missed every time.  Townsfolk and soldiers cleared the road as they passed. Those that didn’t retreat into houses and storefronts with somber faces grinned and followed the tail end of the procession with excited gossiping.

The wagon rocked to a stop.  “Huh.” Desmond grunted as they were all ordered to exit the wagon and he dismounted with a hop.  He stumbled a bit as something white passed through the edge of his view and for a moment he had the delirious thought that there was a proper brother waiting to rescue them.  “I was expecting a gallows.”

“Nah.”  Ralof shrugged off an Imperial soldier’s hand as it nudged them together.  “Too much can go wrong with a hanging. They’ll want this over fast to prevent escapes.”

The thief’s eyes went wide at that and he bumped Desmond’s side.  “No! This is a mistake! We’re not rebels!” His head whipped to Ralof.  “You’ve got to tell them we’re not with you!”

A woman in shining steel and blood red leather marched forward.  She spoke loudly, projecting, as someone used to giving commands and having them obeyed.  Her hand never left the pommel of her sheathed sword. “Step towards the block when we call your name.  One at a time.”

Ulfric’s whole body tensed beneath his cloak and armor as Ralof hissed under his breath, “Empire loves their damned lists.”

What wasn’t said: _How did they get the names of the Stormcloaks?_

A man in boiled leather looked down at an honest-to-god clipboard.  What? Desmond shook his head. Romans were the first to invent concrete so why not clipboards?  

“Ulfric Stromcloak.  Jarl of Windhelm.”

“It had been an honor, Jarl Ulfric.”  Ralof bowed his head as his gagged leader walked forward, head high.

“Ralof of Riverwood.  Lokir of Rorikstead.”

“No!  I’m not a rebel!  You can’t do this!”  The thief broke, running.  “I’m a thief, not a traitor!  You can’t kill me for that!”

Desmond winced as the woman raised her arm, and a simple signal of _archers_ left Lokir more pincushion than man.  Dark eyes surveyed the remaining prisoners from the shadows of her gleaming helm.  “Anyone else feel like running?”

Of course not, Desmond thought.  That wouldn’t be dignified. Though, if he had his hands free he could probably make it.  The archers had taken a few seconds to line up their shots and he wasn’t stupid enough to follow the road-

“Wait.  You there.  Step forward.”  The clipboard bearer spoke with confusion as his quill ceased checking boxes.  Desmond blinked and glanced around, realizing that he was the only one not lined up like a bunch of elementary school kids waiting for their turn at the bathroom.  ...Maybe that was a bad analogy, but he really wasn’t looking forward to experiencing a beheading. “Who are you?”

“The name's Miles, Desmond Mi-”

The woman in the captain’s helm slammed her hand down on the clipboard, scattering thick papers and snarling, “I know who he is.  He’s the fucking degenerate that walked right up to Marelle's group and blew our cover.”

The man frowned.  A little vee formed between his eyebrows as he stared at the limp papers around him.  “Regrettable to be sure, but Captain, he isn’t on the list.”

“Forget the list.  He goes to the block.”

“Captain-”

“He killed Aldonniss - we don’t even have numbers yet for how many died from the premature activation of the blockade.  He goes to the block.” 

Desmond took his place in line.  His bones ached as a low thrumm echoed through the air.  He took measured breaths, reminding himself with each inhale that it wasn’t real.  The jet of blood that sprayed as the man with the ancestors left for Sovngarde wasn’t actually present.  Desmond was safe in Abstergo, with white walls and humming machinery, and not about to be killed. His joints throbbed.  A horn sounded in the distance. He stepped toward the block and grit his teeth as the captain kicked his legs and his knees hit the ground.  

Desmond prepared himself for a desync, and the inevitable headache and nausea that came with it.

His cheek pressed against the damp, sticky headsman’s block.  The words he intended to say to the scowling lady captain before he either restarted the game or woke up to old man face were, _I can see up your skirt._

What came out was, “OH, _HELL_ YES!”

Saved by the dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for the most part this story is going to be Gen. Initially, Desmond does not want to start a relationship with what he thinks is a computer program - but that doesn't mean the Skyrim characters aren't going to want to start a relationship with him. Primary contenders thus far are: Ulfric, Maven Black-Briar, and *SPOLIER*.


	4. What The World Needs Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I am a tactless minstrel, I sing off key for coins. If you spot me in the street please kick me in the loins!” - Ezio Auditore

Other than the sound of Warren Vidic’s fingers flying over his keyboard, it was quiet in the office.  The scent of Vidic’s coffee hung in the air as a black and bitter miasma. Lucy found herself glancing up every few minutes just to make sure Subject 17 was still breathing.  The blonde scientist still didn’t know the cause of Subject 15’s death, and they’d taken every precaution possible with the terrified, expecting mother. Perhaps, Lucy thought, she should have pushed the issue more but the priority had been to get ready for 16 and the autopsy had been farmed out to some other Abstergo branch.  After, she didn’t have the clearance to look into those files.

Yet.

Vidic had gotten tired of calling security every time Subject 17 went into a _fit_ and rather than take the risk of injecting him with paralytics -stupid, when they didn’t know why the Animus had forgone stimulating the necessary blockers in the first place- he’d had her reattach the binding arms that were used for the more uncooperative subjects.  

Unfortunately, since Subject 17 wasn’t exactly capable of making the conscious decision to not fight the steel now trapping his arms and legs in place he had started to develop bruises.  Unplugging him from the machine wasn’t feasible, so she’d have to watch for bedsores, too. It wasn’t like Vidic would.

Lucy looked back down at the laptop propped in her lap and resumed noisily slurping her noodles.  If she closed her eyes she could pretend she was still in college, pretend her biggest worry was repaying her student loans, pretend that Assassin’s were a thing of the past and she wasn’t William Fucking Miles’ Templar bait dangling out in the wind.

The rapid fire clicking of a keys came to a stop.  “Miss Stillman, must you slurp that artificially flavored slop?  There is a perfectly good cantina on the third floor. I am trying to concentrate.”

As if she would actually consider using Abstergo’s employee cafeteria after… well.  Lucy sucked harder, and the tail end of a noodle slapped against her upper lip like a fish tail of carbohydrates to splash chicken flavored broth into the air.  Vidic, somehow, scowled harder. It was true what she had told Subject 17. She owed Vidic her life. Her profession. He’d spoken up for her when they… He had inducted her into the Order, and showed her how much better the world could be…

Lucy sat at the top of the stairs that led down to the Animus station, and continued eating her lunch _with gusto_.  She held the ramen cup in one hand and paged down as she read more in-depth reports on previous Animus models.  Even though she had supervised the tech’s as they installed the current version into the recess, Lucy had been more focused on the genetics themselves and the psychological effects breaking open such ‘forbidden knowledge’ might have on subjects.  Vidic, she knew, had a hand in designing and refining the machines as he’d been project head for almost forty years. But the Animus Project, or rather what the Animus Project had evolved out of, was even older and based around wormhole generation to attempt legit time travel.  As designed by Nikola Edison-Can-Go-Die-In-A-Ball-Of-Heavenly-Fire Tesla.

The tangle around _that_ Assassin-Templar dust up was so confused they still weren’t positive who had been a Templar, who had been an Assassin, which were double agents, and the ones that accidentally had their minds switched like some kind of hardcore mash-up of Freaky Friday and 13 going on 30.  The whole project had been written off and the attendant records buried beyond what even Vidic’s clearance usually allowed.   

Lucy frowned and glanced back toward Subject 17.  The software the Animus used was derived purely from human ingenuity.  The hardware? “Like Lion on an Atari…”

What if Subject 17 woke up and it wasn’t Desmond Miles in the driver’s seat, but Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad?  Vidic had been more than happy to encourage the addictive effect the Animus had seemed to have on Subject 16, leaving him in for days at a time, until Cla- until 16 couldn’t even keep to one language during the course of a conversation.  He’d been so eager to share what he learned, but he hadn’t been able to articulate it until…

Lucy set aside her near empty noodle cup with a sigh.  She’d tried to minimize that particular bleeding effect this time around.  The translation program had been a bitch to integrate into the Animus, and it was still hit or miss in some areas.  The woman still wasn’t sure what bug was causing Altaïr to sound like a 21st Century American when literally no one else in the memories did.  She hoped that wasn’t a sign that Subject 17 was _actually_ running around in his ancestor’s body thinking it was all Animus projections.

She did not have the degree for calculating that kind of bullshit causality.  

“Miss Stillman.”  Vidic said abruptly as he stood, the office chair rolling away from the force of the action.  “Miss Stillman, the Animus requires your attention!”

“What- shit!”  Lucy slammed her laptop shut and tossed it aside before leaping over to the overheating machine, the noodle cup wobbling threateningly in her wake.  The soft blue-white glow that normally emitted from the activated Animus had shifted to a warning red. She scrolled down the interface terminal and checked the power readings: minimal.  Running a quick diagnostic showed it wasn’t the internal processors that were overheating. “It’s the sensors. Odd, they’re delicate so theyshould have more insulation separating them from the rest of the Animus components.  Still, he’s been in there for almost three days now giving and receiving constant stimulus.”

At least they’d stopped with the invasive spinal taps after Subject 4, though the sensors used to get around that issue had also been based on the leavings of Those Who Came Before.  Exactly how they worked was a mystery only known to the engineering department and her superior. Lucy’s own knowledge didn’t extend beyond plug-and-play.

“Subject 16 has gone longer, they didn’t show any strain then.”

Lucy glared and pointed at the very prominent lettering proclaiming the activated SafeMode.  “Subject 16 opened his wrists.”

Vidic sneered.  “With _your_ pen.  I’m not so careless to leave tools where an _Assassin_ might find them.”

“He wasn’t an Assassin.”  Not really. Not until the Animus made him one.

Two pieces of bait, dangling on William Miles’ hook, waiting for the bastards to snap them up.

“And now he’s a corpse.  I have a conference with the Board to explain this… setback.  As inconvenient as he is, make sure _this_ one doesn’t die.  The Surrogate Initiative isn’t ready yet.”  Vidic retrieved several papers that were still warm from the printer and left the room.  Lucy strained her ears, listening for the last echoing footstep, before stepping closer to the seemingly sleeping man.  Appearances were always deceiving.

The glass floor was cold even through the soles of her shoes.  Below, a complex system of pipes, coolant, and fans worked to keep the Animus running at peak efficiency as the energy requirements to decode and read genetic memories in real time was the stuff tin foil hat conspiracy theories.  The thought was enough to make her smile.

In a way, Abstergo had become her own Farm.  Assassins. Templars. Brotherhood of Bullshit.  Order of Crap. She couldn’t leave, and people she’d thought of as friends and coworkers would… it was ironic.  Technically, she was supposed to talk to the Subjects and gain their confidence and cooperation. Technically, both she and Vidic were.  The Animus worked better with willing Subjects, after all. And even before that motivation Lucy spoke more to the subjects Cross brought in than her own people.  Whoever they were.

The smile faded as she took Subject 17’s hand in hers.  The man’s palms were warmer than they should have been. The Animus tended to act as a heat sink and leave the subjects cool to the touch.  Corpselike. She reached up and touched the back of her right hand against his forehead. Normal. Lucy knew from the profile Abstergo had complied that he was a year older than her, but he looked younger.  The scientist trailed her fingers along the side of his face. Maybe it was his naivety that made him seem so - as though Vidic would actually let him leave once they’d gotten Altaïr’s map.  The only Subjects that still lived were Cross, who was insane, and Vidic himself, who she would argue was as well.  

Lucy shook her head and stepped back, 17’s fingers slipping from her grip, and almost missed the flare of heat that pulsed through the man’s arm.  The blonde clutched her hand to her chest, fingertips stinging as though she’d brushed them against a hot pan.

“What…?”  

* * *

“Flame On!”  Desmond shouted while punching at the river the surrounding village was named for.  He felt a brief spike of warmth surround his fist, but the sensation could have just as easily been wishful thinking.  The comforting blue that had been lurking in the corner of his eye since he’d started trying to recreate the fireball effect from the battle had long since faded like the morning fog that drifted from the burbling waters.  

It should, he thought, have been easy.  The bartender had seen the Empire’s battle mages shadow boxing the sky to launch fireballs at the black dragon.  An ultimately useless tactic, yeah, even _he_ knew fire didn’t hurt dragons but the technique displayed seemed rather straightforward.  

Their flight from Helgen had been as informative as it had been hectic.  Between dodging burning rubble, the rampaging dragon, and later the imperial patrols desperate to recapture fleeing prisoners Desmond and Ralof had plenty of time to talk and think.  Desmond was pretty sure Ralof thought he was an idiot what with all the questions he had asked the man. The stormcloak was nice about it, though, even if he did get a vaguely constipated look on his face at points.  Apparently not everyone in RadioActive Fantasy Land came with a shitty compass floating above their heads. The beleaguered bartender was just special like that.

Desmond stood on the long dead stump of former tree and took another deep breath.  For a few moments he simply breathed, long inhales and exhales to center himself, eyes closed.  He held his arms out as if offering himself for surrender, before slowly pulling them back to protectively tuck an unseen ball against his side.  Another breath, and in a burst of movement his arms thrust back toward the river. Wrists practically kissing and fingers curled as if to cup Desmond slammed a fur clad foot down as his whole body lurched forward with a mighty cry, “Hadouken!”

Eyes wide open, Desmond watched as a lick of flame formed and then petered out a bare foot from his palms.  Better than before, but not nearly as impressive as the few torrents he’d managed at the start. He was definitely missing something.  It was probably one of those somethings that should have been obvious. Unfortunately, neither Ralof nor his sister had any interest in magic and seemed to take their fugitive’s inability to consistently call up the flames as evidence of its uselessness.

“But it’s fire.”  Desmond muttered, glaring at his blackened palms.  He didn’t feel tired, like the way he did when the green flashed and then gradually faded, but maybe there was a similar effect in play?  A limit imposed by the Animus because the doc is a dick? “Who wouldn’t want to be able to toss it like confetti?”

“Most Nords, actually, and with good reason.  Reasons.” A voice piped up behind him and Desmond jumped, stumbling off his stump and spinning around.  A man, for a given value of man, stood in a sweat stained tunic with an unstrung bow and quiver of arrows poking over his shoulder.  Dark eyes set into a thin face narrowed as they took in the mish-mash of clothing Desmond had claimed from the various corpses he’d either made or tripped over during the dragon borne escape.  If asked, the runaway would admit the furry wrist guards and boots clashed horribly with the bloodstained leather of the pho-Romans. No one had actually asked. And the fur was warm, dammit. Warmer and more comfortable than the scratchy prisoner uniform.  “Are you Desmon?"

“That’s me!”  Desmond answered with false cheer as he wiped his soot covered palms off on the blue wool he’d hung around his shoulders in a makeshift poncho.  It wasn’t nearly as cold in Riverwood as it had been where the memory -no, _simulation_ \- had started but it was still damn cold and chainmail sucked balls at retaining heat.  “And it’s Desmond. Dah.”

“Gerdur’s looking for you, something about having the supplies for your trip.”  The elf -and Desmond idly considered if it would be racist to call him so- half turned toward the mill, before seeming to think better of it and looking over his shoulder to the taller man.  “Last I saw she was talking to Camilla outside the Trader. I can take you there?”

“Please.”  Desmond hopped over the old stumps to follow, wondering but carefully not saying anything about the man’s ears.  As they crossed the bridge that connected the mill’s island to the village proper Desmond examined the wooden huts and homes with a critical eye.  Many of them looked abandoned, with moss creeping into stone foundations and hinges beginning to rust from humidity. The wars, he supposed.

Between the Empire’s previous call for swordarms against the Dominion, and the current strife as locals fought to keep their own religion it was inevitable that some homes would stand empty.  Rather, the whole situation seemed eerily familiar only Skyrim had more general greenery than the Levantine. Also, big-ass natural predators. It was only thanks to his aborted assassin training that he and Ralof had been able to sneak past the cave bear...

“...then there’s the bandits.  It’s gotten to the point I daren’t leave the house without my bow.”  

“I’m sorry?”  Desmond asked as Gerdur’s screaming son broke him from his musings.  The boy ran between the two adults, chasing his dog and flapping his arms shouting about being a dragon.  

Faendal grunted and shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he followed Frodnar’s progress down the main street.  “Bandits. Getting bolder every day - did you know they came right into the village last week and raided the Riverwood Trader?  Barbarians. I suppose we should be grateful sweet Camilla was unharmed.”

“I’m surprised they’d be open so soon if they got robbed.”  The brunette paused to readjust the gladius type sword hanging at his waist, but he just couldn’t get it to hang like Altaïr’s had.  What he needed was to get his hands on some proper robes and belts.  “Merchant caravans must have a bitch of time making the rounds these days.”

“That’s the odd thing.”  Faendal continued, his tone sharpening as his nose scrunched as if remembering a bad smell.  “They only took the Valerius family heirloom. My guess is Sven’s caterwauling scared them off before they could get much more.  Divine’s know it certainly frightens away the deer. Ah. Here we are.”

They had come to stop at a simple two story building with a faded wooden sign creaking out front.  A slap-dash porch reminded Desmond the general store he’d seen in an old western back on the Farm, but there was enough plant life poking up between the boards and hanging from the roof that the effect was muted.  Two women were talking beside some refuse barrels tucked on the side of the door, only one of which Desmond recognized. “Hey, Gerdur.”

“Desmon!  And Faendal.  Thank you very much for fetching him.”  Gerdur called, smiling. She had a large leather pack tucked on hip like a balancing toddler.  “I was able to get quite a few things, except…”

“Unfortunately, our supply of maps was ruined during the break in.  They were not the most delicate of bandits.” The darker haired woman apologized with a sigh.  “Still, so long as you don’t leave the road it is a fairly quick trip. Couriers can run the distance within a day, faster if you’ve a horse.”

Desmond shook his head.  “Just me.”

“If I may?”  Faendal interrupted, and the strange lilt to his voice gave the bartender enough pause to activate Eagle Vision.  Faendal was a nice neutral blue with the faintest gold lining. Odd.

Camilla hummed, her gaze turning to focus on the dusky elf as if she had some special sight of her own, and Desmond got it.  High cheeks flushed under the petite woman’s attention. Faendal’s fingers twined together for a moment before the elf forcefully pulled them apart and tucked them behind his suddenly straight back.  

“The lad-” Desmond bit his tongue to keep from saying something rude as the woodsman spoke.  He was a good head taller than the elf, after all! “-is new to Skyrim. Surely it would be better to send him with an escort?  A lone traveler is a prime target, after all, especially these days.”

“I think I can take care of myself.”  The assassin grumbled, but Camilla’s hands clapped together as she smiled with her whole body, teeth gleaming and white.

“Oh, Faendal!  That’s a great idea!”  She bounced a bit, rising on the tips of her toes.  Such energy was infectious. Desmond found himself echoing her smile with one of his own.  “I can take you, we need to report the-”

“NO!”  Desmond, Faendal, Gerdur, and Camilla all jumped as the door of the little shop rattled from the force of the shout.  “Camilla, you are NOT leaving the village whilst those bandits are about. We talked about this. That is FINAL!”

“You just said I couldn’t hunt the bandits!”  Camilla pouted with her arms crossed cutely over her breasts as she addressed the door.  “This is just a quick trip to the city!”

“HA!  I know you, little sister.  You’ll see the young man to the gates and then disappear with that bear woman.”  The door swung open to reveal a slightly older man. The family resemblance was obvious.  He was glaring at the young woman, though the way his mouth twitched Desmond was willing to bet he was fighting a smile. Or another rant.  Hard to tell, with families. “So, no. I’ll send the report with the next courier, maybe hire Uthgerd… she’s considerably cheaper than the companions.”

Adorable lips pursed together mulishly before tossing her head, looped braids bouncing as she dismissed her brother to focus on Desmond.  “Sven was just telling me the other day how he wanted to go to Whiterun to drop off the new book of songs he was working on. He wrote one just for me, you know.  His friend from the college knows a scribe with guild contacts.”

Gerdur’s lips pursed in distaste.  “Does he? Humph. I suppose I won’t have any work for the layabout until we find out what happened to the missing timber shipment… double the work for half the payment doesn’t do anyone favors, not in these times, and the sooner we get reinforcements from Whiterun the better.  I’ll speak to Sven. Desmon? Here.”

The pack of supplies was heavy, and Desmond staggered under the weight until he got it turned around strapped to his back.  

“I also got you a change of clothes.  Proper clothes, at that. So you don’t look so much like an honorless scavenger.  And despite Jarl Balgruuf’s claims of neutrality I very much doubt you’d get through Whiterun’s gates in Stormcloak blue.”  Gerdur picked at Desmond’s poncho, her lips twisting into wry amusement. “If that were the case Ralof could have done the job himself.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“Nonsense.”  Gerdur shushed him with a sharp cut of her hand through the air.  “This war has taken much from us, and it isn’t close to finished. You saved my stubborn ass of a brother, and for that I owe you.  Shor’s bones, _we_ owe you.”

They are not real, Desmond told himself as a bird chirped overhead and the sun warmed his skin.  The straps of the crude leather backpack dug into his shoulders. It wasn’t true, none of it. Their thanks mean _nothing_.

His head ducked in embarassment anyway.

* * *

Desmond felt his eye twitching as he walked.  He was beginning to suspect he’d gotten played.  He had exchanged the potluck of armor and clothing for a more uniform civilian set to blend better - _hide in plain sight_ \- and to be honest the layered cloth and leather wasn’t too shabby.  Well, it was shabby in that Gerdur had gotten it on the cheap being third or fourth hand and there were clear signs of repairs from a stab wound around his left ribs but the layers of wool and leather were surprisingly warm and comfy.  And he hadn’t had to give up his new boots, either.

The lack of hood was a bit of a bummer.  Putting aside their connection to assassins and clandestine orders of all stripes, he liked the way they looked, and most importantly how they kept his ears warm when his hair was too short to do so.  At the moment he doubted a bit of cloth would be enough to protect his sensitive ears from Sven, he’d probably need to pull an Odysseus for that, but every little bit helped.

“Camilla… sweet Camilla… your lips taste as fine as vanilla…”  Sven sang as they walked, idly strumming the lute he cradled in his arms.

Just looking at the instrument had sparked a twist in Desmond’s gut that he couldn’t quite place.  Having gotten a late start on their trip, and bard and the bartender had camped out that night rather than proceed to Whiterun and show up haggard and hungry and too damn early for any respectable citizen.  While Desmond had worked on digging out a small pit to help hide their fire from unwanted eyes, the arrogant blond claimed a rock and began tuning the rosewood and gold monstrosity. When Desmond asked if he could not, Sven just clucked at him like he was stupid and said the river would _drown_ out the sounds before they reached unwelcome ears.

Bards were really into word play, apparently, and as a graduate of the esteemed Bards College in Solitude Sven had learned not only how to play a lute but fight with one.  So he claimed.

What was he gonna do if a spider showed up?  It’s not like they were in fucking Georgia. Hell, they weren’t even in _Kansas_.

“Just- Can you not talk about her breasts like that?  Or, maybe not talk about her breasts at all?” Desmond ground out, his hands clenching around the straps of his backpack and wishing it was his companions neck he was squeezing.  He couldn’t explain where all the aggression was coming from. He’d heard worse lyrics on the radio, but looking at Sven walking just ahead with that arrogant smirk made him want to slap it right off his face.

The smirk whirled right around to him.  Fingers playfully strummed a zippy little tune out of synch with the previous melody.  “Oh, my friend. Of course I shall speak no more of the beautiful Camilla’s lovely _ass_ -ets.  I shall SING HER PRAISES TO THE WORLD!”

“Please don’t.”

The other man hopped onto and over several boulders embedded in the mountainside and struck a pose.  “ _Her eyes shine like the stars in the night, with steps like she’s dancing on light.  A small town is no good, a mere hovel Riverwood_ -”

“You live with your mom!”  That spark of rage kicked up another notch.  How could he diss his own home like that? What the hell, man?!

“ _-but with me at her side we can take our sweet time_ … in the… eyes of the Divine…”

“You’re making this shit up aren’t you.”

Golden hair caught light and glittered as Sven dismounted his perch.  “It is a work in progress. Genius cannot be rushed. But if you do not wish to hear about the wonder that is Camilla Valerius… _there was once a traveler from good Cyrodiil who lived like a man and liked a good thrill.  One day while spelunking, he took a good thumping, and ran crying through the streets wearing nil!_ ”

“OH, IT IS ON!”  Desmond leapt, indignation and anger dismissing logical thought as the goddamn singer’s grin morphed into shock.

Sven yelped as the bartender tackled him to the ground, the lute shattering as it took the impact of an angry fist and so saved the Nord’s teeth.  Sven squirmed, loudly questioning his attacker’s sanity as the more useless lessons of his school came to the foreground helping him to evade the succession of blows Desmond rained down.  

Desmond growled as Sven bucked, blood roaring in his ears as the mix of red/green/blue narrowed the world into just him and his opponent.  Sven bucked, and Desmond through himself backwards as the Nord grasped a shattered bit of lute like a dagger to swipe at the supposed imperial’s face. “Dick move!”

Sven scrambled into a standing position, one eye swelling and blood dripping from his lip.  He drew the simple camp dagger from his waist, brandishing metal and lacquered wood respectively.  “Says the coward who attacks without a formal challenge!”

“Then put your money where your mouth is, momma’s boy!”  Desmond hollered back, incensed, fists raised and waiting.  He didn’t want to kill Sven, not really, just beat him into the earth and if he drew his sword it would be too easy to fall into Altaïr’s habits.  Even when ‘teaching’ the novices the Eagle of Masyaf didn’t exactly have a non-lethal mode.

Sven lunged.  Desmond leaned out of the way, dodging back around the man and punching at a kidney.  The anger was beginning to fade. Then the smarmy little smirk came back despite the cut lip and Sven ducked and came up blindly slashing so the more experienced man was forced to cede space once more, and with the river to Sven’s back he couldn’t circle around.  The blond took the opportunity to run, feet vanishing around a bend in the road.

An inarticulate string of sound erupted from Desmond’s mouth as he hiked up his pack and gave chase.  Stupid, he thought. This whole thing was stupid.

And whose fault is that?  Another voice snarked back.  

Oh shut up. Sven is as innocent as Dr. Frankenfurter, Desmond huffed, holding his ribs where one of the bard’s elbows had managed to collide in a strike of pure dumb luck.  He slowed down, huffing, as the green faded into the green of a wide, vast grasslands the assassin-trained man could see just beyond the thin tree line. Sven’s hands were in the air and he had a poor, pitiful me look on his face in addition to the crusting blood and yellowing bruises.

The play for sympathy wasn’t working and the Imperial soldier nudged the handle of his sword with his thumb, jostling it free from the sheath and causing a good inch of steel to be bared.  “Citizen! I’m warning you, your presence is interfering with Imperial Business, begone!”

“Sir, I mean no disrespect, only aide in these trying times!”  Sven tried again.

“Imperial business, be on you way!”  Another soldier shouted, hand white knuckled and gripping a shoulder clad in a very familiar outfit.  The _former_ prisoner's skin crawled in sympathy.

“Crap.”  Desmond hissed and began to slink back up the mountain road, back into the dense cover of trees and ferns.  Pausing to check his Eagle Vision, he let out a grateful sigh before noticing Sven gesturing wildly before beginning to run toward Desmond.  “ _That little shit_.”

One red dot became four.  White became blue.

“You there!  What do you think- I KNOW YOU!”  The lead soldier cried, blade clearing shealth with an edge sharpening screech.  “MEN! TAKE THE HERETIC!”

_What now?_

“Go, Friend!”  The prisoner suddenly shouted, voice like a bellows as he twisted around to headbut the imperial guarding him.  “Talos guide you!”

_The fuck?_

“Screw it.”  Desmond drew his own stolen sword and leapt into what was rapidly becoming a free-for-all as a random wolf jumped from the grassy outcropping above to snap at the lead soldier.  Whiterun would just have to wait. His empty hand he clenched back into a fist. As he closed in on the now five enemies Desmond turned his body sideways, sword arm pulled back and raised to come down.  He opened his closed hand, fingers spreading like a magician on stage.

A young girl screamed nearby.  Someone cursed a deity he didn’t know.  A flutter of white as the prisoner dropped to the ground and spun, knocking the legs of his captor out from under him.    

Flames poured forth.  It felt _good_.  The soldier who’d been attempting to get enough distance to put an arrow in the fleeing, fire-wreathed wolf snarled, “Woah-woah, watch the magic!”

Steel met flesh.  “Watch the sword, dumbass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus Desmond continues his bloodline's feud with ~~ministrels~~ bards. Needless to say, he will not being following the Bard's College questline. Last bit of this chapter was rushed... but it is cold and I have the need to bake cookies today. Ovens make the kitchen warm.
> 
> In the next chapter, whenever that will be, Desmond goes ~~dumpster~~ dungeon diving.


	5. Why Men Don't Like Asking For Directions Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You plod along, putting one foot before the other, look up, and suddenly there you are. Right where you wanted to be all along.”_

“I’m lost,” Desmond thought with a spark of tired amusement as sunlight dappled the ground at his feet.  He let out a long sigh and raised his head, peeking around at the sparse vegetation around him. “Again. Fuck.”  

Hindsight being what it was, Desmond decided next time he came into conflict with the local fauna he was not going to try the fire trick.  Not because it hadn’t worked. Oh boy - it _had_ worked.  Fur was surprisingly flammable.  Unfortunately, either because it was an animal or because the wolf was already so mad with hunger/rabies/magical radiation as to attack people in the first place, instead of running for the river it had decided to keep circling through the deadfall and snapping at the humans.  It’d also had friends that hadn’t taken too kindly to their buddy doing a phoenix impression, minus rebirth.

So, between the Imperial soldiers and their former prisoner, the wolves, and Sven proving the worth of his tuition in the quality and variance of his vocal projection, Desmond did not notice the group arriving to investigate the smoke and screams until they gasped in outrage as they witnessed him plant a foot on an armoured torso so he’d have the necessary leverage to pull his now thoroughly banged up and bloodied sword free.  Sharing a look with the even more haggard former prisoner, Desmond doubted that claiming that the soldiers started it was going help their argument.

Especially when under the soot, tears, and bloodstains Desmond couldn’t look less like a harmless bartender.

And, his luck being what it was, if their clothing was any clue the group of witnesses consisted mostly of civilians.  If rather burly civilians. Fitness buffs, maybe? Only one woman wearing a face concealing helmet and palette swapped stormcloak gear looked military, with a mace in one hand and a round, painted yellow shield in the other.  When he squinted Desmond thought he saw some kind of picture on the thing, but with all the smoke in the air he couldn’t make it out. Because fire. His fellow former prisoner hissed as the fingerlings of flames drew closer and, crouching, ran at a diagonal before neatly throwing himself in the freezing water.

Desmond hadn’t feel abandoned by the action, no, mostly he felt perturbed that the guy didn’t immediately come back up sputtering because he knew that water was freeze-your-balls-off cold and if _he_ tried that he’d probably drown.  But it wasn’t as though he was restricted to Altaïr’s skill set anymore, so maybe?  Whatever: middle of battle was not the time to contemplate reality.

The female soldier had holstered her mace and drew a bow from her back so quickly, so smoothly, that the cut on his cheek where her arrow grazed it still stung everytime a fresh, frozen breeze caressed it.  It had been a narrow miss, thoroughly knocking the young man from his contemplations of escape routes as he instinctively dropped onto his back, rolling sideways to the flaming cover as he did so. Desmond did _not_ want first hand knowledge of what being shot in the face felt like.  

It was to the alarmed calls of “The Meadery!” and “Get the water buckets!” that Desmond made his escape.  Sacrificing his backpack in favor of speed, he had hauled himself up the mountain utilizing bared roots and stone outcrops for handholds.  Compared to the crumbling walls his ancestor had to deal with, scaling the mountainside had been a cakewalk. At least out in the middle of nowhere he didn’t have to deal with guards, or people accusing him of madness, or the damn bricks crumbling at his touch if put too much weight on them.

Though something in his chest twinged a bit at the thought of maybe accidentally destroying a brewery, simulated or not.

“ _Fuck_.”  Desmond sighed, this time dragging out the word as he collapsed onto a convenient mushroom covered stump.  The green that had started to build up during his climb gradually faded, along with the aching pulse in his limbs.  He picked at a white mushroom cap, lost in thoughts of wasted mead, the fungus breaking off at the stem and settling into his palm with an odd weight.  It was pretty plain for a shroom. A light dusting of freckles covered the cap and reminded him of a marshmallow with just the right amount of browning from the fire.  In fact, now that he thought about it kinda looked like a marshmallow, and he had lost the food Gerdur had packed for him when - “NO!”

Desmond jerked out of his meandering thoughts and glared at the innocent mushroom that was dangerously close to his face.  He threw it on the ground and stomped, crushing the fungus until it was unrecognizable. Then he pointed at the smear in the dirt and growled.  “I am not going to eat you. I don’t know what ancestor had the damn oral fetish but I am not so stupid to put random fucking mushrooms in my mouth. I am not going to de-synch because poisoning!”

In a softer tone Desmond muttered, “Vidic would never let me live it down, the ass.”  

Shaking his head free from dark thoughts, the brunette leaned back, face tilting skyward, letting his weight settle into his forearms as his palms pressed into the old, shroom infested stump.  It was slightly warmer in the sunlight than the shadows, though as he’d climbed higher up the mountain the trees became sparser and the air thinner. He was surrounded by rocks, dirt, permafrost, and steep inclines.  Probably, also, more wolves.

Though, he’d take flaming wolves over giant acromantulas anyday. _Everyday_.  The sound eight legs made was… nightmare inducing.   

Desmond frowned as he took stock of himself, eyes opening the tiniest slit to peer at the world with a predator’s vision.  The washed out gray overlay of the Sight didn’t offer any insights of import. At least he didn’t see any more enemies, hidden or otherwise.  The whole mess had been… stupid. He’d let his irritation and anger take the wheel like he was still some dumb teenager with something to prove.  Could be it was all the time -Days? Hours? He had no clue. His sense of time was screwed something fierce.- spent in the Animus. He could infer from bits of Lucy and the Doc’s overheard conversations that extended sessions could lead to instability, inability to synch properly or synch _too well_ which for some reason was bad?  What would happen, exactly, he didn’t know but if it was enough of an argument for Vidic to relent it was probably _really_ bad.

With the headaches and vertigo he usually felt after coming out of a session, Desmond was willing to bet his brain was going to dribble out of his ears sooner or later.  Sooner, probably, if he couldn’t finish the quest and get out of the Misty Mountain Magic land.

“Damn it, Lucy.”  If this was one of Altaïr’s memories he could wait a bit and navigate using the stars.  Not something he usually had to do, what with the Animus cutting out the necessary bits, but it could be done.  At the very least he, as Desmond, could identify major constellations and figure out north. Whiterun was supposed to be north of Riverwood.  But that was on Earth. Whatever, wherever Skyrim was based on, was not Earth. Stars changed, yeah, but they didn’t change _that_ much _that_ fast.

The sky was out, for all he knew the sun rose in the west here and he really should have asked Ralof about that even if it did earn him another watery smile and a head pat, but the bartender still needed some way to orient himself, to get back to civilization or some semblance of it, and while the transparent navigation bar was good for some things mapping out a route when surrounded by mountains was not one of them.  Desmond stared unhappily at a snow-capped peak looming in the distance as an idea began to form.

“I need a viewpoint.”  The runaway assassin had no idea if the Eagle Vision would work the same in this simulation as it had when he was piloting his ancestor, but he didn’t need the same detail of knowledge it gave him as long as he could see far enough to get his bearings.  The direction of the River, at the least.

With a goal clear in his mind, Desmond could feel the tension in his shoulders ease out.  He stood up, brushing himself off with a quick dusting of his backside to dislodge any shroomy hitchhikers, and considered.  He’d lost the pack of supplies, but he still had his stolen sword and the three daggers tucked opposite, as Altaïr preferred and Desmond had unthinkingly imitated..  His clothes, while wrecked from the fight and following climb, were decent enough.  If he could rinse the worst of it off in the river one might be able to claim he was presentable.  And, while he didn’t have a decent trail to follow back to the road only a few yards on he could see a shallow gulch that likely doubled as a footpath when it wasn’t flooding.  Which it wasn’t

Desmond squinted up at the grayed symbols that floated just above his eyeline.  As if sensing his attention they grew darker, more prominent, and when he turned to survey the downslope they in turn slid around like beads on an abacus.  Something like a monopoly house floated into view as he stepped into the gulch, hard stone exposed after years of erosion. The snowmelt path led straight to the house thing - and straight _up_.  

Well, at the very least he could ask for directions.  Barter for dinner. So long as things didn’t take an even weirder turn and the house turned out to belong to a witch or something.  

A simple contented smile grew on the young man’s face as he walked in the unblemished sunlight.  His mind flashed back to Sven’s surprised face, lute splinters scattered across it like a ladies blush.  The smile deepened and his steps felt implausibly lighter as a memory, half forgotten in a warm fog of booze, played between his lips.   “ _It’s over the mountains, and over the main.  Through Gibraltar to France and Spain. It’s a feather tae your bonnet, and a kilt abeen your knee, an list’ bonnie laddie an come awa wit me_.”

* * *

“ _Shenanigans_.”  The word escaped him with a puff of disbelief.  The broken watchtower ahead in no way resembled a cottage.  What it resembled was three to four stories of hard stone and frozen mortar that had gotten kicked in the teeth one too many times but refused to stay down.  The exposed upper room meant the structure had either been abandoned at one point or whoever was in charge of the place never had the money or inclination for repairs.  It was occupied now, obviously, but just as obviously not by a goat herder. “I call shenanigans.”

Desmond crossed his arms over his chest, warming his hands under his armpits, and carefully moved forward.  He had thought he was getting better at interpreting his navbar, but then he’d always been a bit of an optimist.  He pinned his lower lip between his teeth and blew out a warm cloud of irritation.

Despite the man standing sentry under the lone evergreen in the area, despite the near-road like gulch that led to it, and despite its extremely notable precarious positioning on the side of the mountain the tower was _not showing up on his navbar._  “Fucking glitch.”  

The damn cottage -if it even was a cottage, for all Desmond knew it was portal to an underground cave of evil gnomes or something- was yet further beyond the tower.  Which meant Desmond would be free climbing down a mountainside covered in ice and grit to get to it. Joy of joys.

The would-be assassin’s attention flicked back to the exposed room on the tower.  His fingers tingled as his eyes idly traced a path from the highest point of broken wall to all the imperfections time had carved down to the base.  Desmond brought his hands out and breathed on them, flexing the muscles as he did so.

Desmond stilled beside a boulder as a guard clad in mismatched, unfairly warm furs pushed off of his lonely tree.  Skin dark, beard darker, the man hadn’t looked like much from a distance but as he approached Desmond there was a certain swagger in his step and the muscles in his arms promised something a bit harder than bear hugs.  The man smiled, teeth white and startlingly predatory as the steel handle of a warhammer glinted over his shoulder. “That’s close enough, friend.”

“We’re friends?  Oh good.” Desmond let his shoulders drop and used his entire body to express relief.  The sword probably wouldn’t sell it very well, but, meh. He placed his hand on his sword hilt, hoping the action looked more like a kid reaching for security blanket and not a man for a weapon.  “You have to help me! We were on our way to Whiterun when we were attacked! By bandits! I got away in the confusion but, but it’s my first time in Skyrim and with everything that’s happened...”

Desmond’s lower lip trembled, willing himself to look younger than his twenty-five years even as he checked the man’s intent.  Blood wafted off of the man in a wet haze, and as it did so three equally dripping blips in the navbar burned into being.

“Bandits, you say?”  The hammer-wielding sentry asked, voice lightening with curiosity.  A dull clunking of metal signaled the catch on his weapon releasing it from his back holster and he swung it around, easily holding the thing with a two-handed batter’s grip.  “No offense meant, but I find that hard to believe.”

“...shit.”  Desmond only managed to get his own weapon halfway out of the scabbard before he used it to block the other man’s hammer swing.  He had brace the blade with the palm of his right hand, and winced as the impact jarred his bones and pushed him back several inches.  

“Because we’re the only bandits on this mountain and I’d know if we’d raided an Imperial Caravan.”  The confessed bandit continued as he pulled back for another swing. Desmond took the given time get his sword clear and dodge the next swing.  Clumped, frozen dirt scattered as the warhammer clipped earth. The bandit continued his strike, following the momentum of the weapon and coming around for a second, slightly higher pass at Desmond’s chest.

It was Altaïr who avoided the strike.  Knowledge from years of fighting heavily armored Crusaders bubbled under Desmond’s skin.  The bandit’s lips curled back in a twisted grin as he kept coming, pressing the advantage of his weapon’s reach and laughing as an arrow flew past the man’s bulk to cut off Desmond’s retreat.  

Right.  Three of them.

Desmond awkwardly parried another hammer swing.  He’d left his scavenged armor in Riverwood, but with a warhammer that was probably a good thing.  Altaïr wasn’t used to it. Desmond wasn’t used to it. And having a hammer cave metal and embed it in his chest would probably hurt worse than a strait up crack at his ribs.

“OH COME ON!”  Desmond shouted as an arrow pierced his side, lodging between said ribs.  

“Can’t wait to count out your coin!”  A nasally voice answered cheerily from behind the hammer-man.  Desmond shuffled steps back, narrowly avoiding a swing at his temple as he realized just what they were doing.  He hadn’t noticed it during the big battle before: that had been the chaos of a battleplan gone to shit. He hadn’t had the chance to do much after, because the whole point of sneaking around had been to avoid detection and fighting.

He was going to try and forget the three -four?- way fuckup that Sven’s revenge had turned into.

But now, here?  He hadn’t wanted to notice, before, though he had.  The NPC’s were different. The asshole with the hammer wasn’t just swinging blindly, and his ally wasn’t just taking pot-shots for the hell of it.  They were not fighting like the many unnamed guards and knights of the Holy Land.

They were trying to _herd_ him.

Desmond ducked, pressing his body flat as he felt the breeze of the hammer’s passage against the back of his neck.  Immediately after he sprung back up, fingers questing toward his injured side, but instead of going for the arrow that was now doing as much to keep his blood inside as it was harming, he plucked a dagger from his belt.  There was red, enemy, and red, warning, threatening to cloud his vision.

He ignored it, and though the small blade wasn’t forged for throwing beggars couldn’t be choosers.  With the same motion Desmond had used to draw the thing he threw it. The dagger spun through the air, Desmond’s aim holding true, but instead of penetrating the bandit’s braincase the bartender watched as the rounded pommel bounced off the larger man’s eye.  Instinct forced the man to flinch, to break his chain of attacks as he lifted one meaty hand to his face even as natural tears blurred his vision.

Seizing the opening, brief as it was, the assassin danced backward, toward the wall of rock that was the rising mountain as he avoided clumsy swings.   He dropped his sword as he planted one foot the remains of a some kind of monument or marking, a toppled stack of stones, and launched himself at the rockface.  He did not run up it, even the best acrobats would be defeated by a straight vertical, but he did use the momentum of his jump and the gravity of the subsequent fall to push himself a little further.

Specifically, Desmond used the wall that would have been a literal dead end to throw himself up and over the man with the hammer.  Vision clouded as it was, the other man was too slow to account for his target’s sudden change in direction, or the dagger that was driven into his unguarded armpit as he reared back, weapon raised for another blow.  Fingers spasmed as the warhammer fell to the ground, heavy head first, and the bandit twisted around, grasping.

Desmond stole the offered claw with a smile of his own and whirled the body around like they were in the world’s most deadliest dance.  He didn’t even need the third dagger.

Blood burst out of the bandit’s mouth, speckling Desmond’s face, as an arrow sunk deep into the man’s back.  His body convulsed, a faint blue-green shimmer going over the newly made corpse, as a voice pitched high with anger screamed, “Belous!  Die, damn you!”

Two more thuds signaled two more arrows hitting Desmond’s new meat shield. There was a frustrated shout and a with a flash of  eagle vision Desmond tracked the burning red figure that had discarded its bow as he crossed the tower’s bridge in favor of a crude, roughly hewn hand axe.  

Desmond backpedaled, fingers digging into the soft fur of the armor to feel the hard, boiled leather beneath, dragging the corpse with him as he flailed under the dead weight.  Once the rage fueled figure drew close Desmond, eyes burning and head aching, heaved the corpse off him.

Two hundred odd pounds of meat lurched toward the second bandit, a slimmer man than the first, followed by a burst of flame to chivvy the dead man along.  The acrid scent of burnt hair and black smoke permeated the air, and even if the brief surge was only a tenth of what he’d been able to to put out previously the shock of sudden heat and light brought the murderous axe wielder up short.  He’d had to side-step his dead friend -which Desmond would later acknowledge was kind of a dick move- and then think fast or risk burns.

Sweeping his sword up from where he’d dropped it earlier, Desmond stepped forward with a lunge at the archer’s shirtless chest. Rage fueled red eyes bored into the human as the pointy-eared not-Faendal blocked Desmond’s attack with surprising swiftness.  The two locked together as the curve on the lower half of the axe blade caught on the straight edge of the runaway’s weapon. Desmond leaned back, grip firm, raised his leg and kicked at and into the wiry man’s solar plexus. The two weapons disengaged with an ear-splitting screech, steel scraping against steel, and before his foe could even begin to recover Desmond swung low.  

The sword skimmed the ground before biting into legs of his foe.  Desmond continued the motion, thoughtlessly stepping around an axe swipe with a swirl before plunging his blade through shirtless bandit’s back and into his heart.  

The little red blip on his navbar vanished as the new corpse shuddered into stillness.

Panting, Desmond reclaimed his blades and stalked over the stone bridge to the tower.  He jerked the arrow out of his side, releasing a few manly whimpers as he did so, and gripped it between his teeth as he bound his sluggishly bleeding side with his own ripped shirt.  A quick blinked confirmed that the third and final enemy was still in the watchtower waiting for the Assassin to come up through the old, rickety stairs and make himself a target.

Not a bad strategy, it worked for the Spartans after all, but there was just one weak link.

“We don’t need no stinking stairs.”  Desmond whispered with an affected accent as he slung the now dead archer’s bow behind his back and began circling around the tower.  He actually had more personal experience with bows than swords - survival training on the Farm being what it was. Comforted by the hope of a weapon that wouldn’t remind him of ancient assassins, Desmond eyed the path he’d mentally traced out earlier and gave into the inevitable.   The stone blocks were solid and what support beams he could see had petrified leaving the tower surprisingly sturdy. The mortar used to keep tower together, however, hadn’t weathered the years half as well. Desmond stretched, fingers fitting in the spaces between stones with a speed and precision that bordered on mechanical, and between one blink and the next was hauling himself over the top of the tower.

His injured side stung, but oddly enough it wasn’t screaming at him.  He knew, what with the sense of red-danger-red-death pooling at his feet and filling his head that it wasn’t healed, but apparently this animus didn’t think something like getting stabbed with a shard of iron wasn’t reason enough to slow him down.  

Might be different if he’d gotten hit in the head, but, well…

He slid carefully over a massive ironwood chest and kept his attention on the lower level and its occupant.  The bandit wore a truly unfair amount of steel plate, was positively knightley, with the kind of helmet that gave Desmond flashbacks to a childhood of flickering TV and the world's most fluid bunny.  

A pair of clawed gauntlets that matched the chestplate held an arrow nocked against a bow that was as ancient as it was deadly.  Less impressive boots shifted, old wood creaking beneath him, as the bandit crouched to stare down the hole in the floor, impatient.  But it wasn’t good for a bow, however well made, to stay indefinitely drawn. Bad for the wood. Especially bad for the string. Eventually the bandit seemed to realize this as well and stood up, relaxing the bowstring as he did so.  

“Maybe I was just hearing things…”  The horned helm swayed as the bandit shook his head.  “...goddamn Rickon. I am going to plant my boot so far up his ass he’ll be tasting leather till next spring.  What in Vile’s na-”

Desmond jerked his dagger free from the bandit chief.  His knees felt a bit bruised as armor was a terrible substitute for a haypile, but as the last enemy died he could feel the relief of victory settle in his bones like a second wind.  He wiped the bloodied blade off on the fur lining of the armor and returned it to its brothers on his belt.

Then, he examined the spoils.  The center of the floor was gone: broken boards suggested something heavy through ages past.  Still, enough remained near the edges he could get across and it was clear from the small stack of barrels and rough sacks that the bandits had done just that.  Desmond jumped the distance and began rifling through bleached sacks, finding a stash of apples and shoving one in his mouth as he went.

It was mostly food in the sacks, probably bartered for with stolen goods, but the barrels held a good number of rust and dirt crusted weaponry.  A lot of it looked not just old, but antique, with angular scrollwork a neat match for the axe that had been used rather ineffectively against him.  Desmond places the longsword/greatsword/whatever-sword back in the barrel. Someone had shoved a bookshelf under the shelter of what remained of the next level’s floor, but most of the books had gotten ruined anyway.  Leather bound tomes, once the pride of someone’s coffee table, now sat stained and bleeding ink into a scrawling, spidery mess of illiteracy.

The long-necked glass bottle being used as a bookend is clear beneath all the dust, and when Desmond picks it up the red liquid inside slouches around like so much fruit punch.  There isn’t much else, just a listing dresser that smells so strongly of mold he’d surprised he isn’t losing health just standing near it, so Desmond springs back over the hole and back to his mess.  

The bandit’s face is staring at him.  Weirdly individualistic, yet slack with emotion.  There’s a trio of scars going down one cheek and a tiny thread of red leaking from the corner of the dead man’s still open mouth.  So close the body, Desmond can recognize the yeasty scent of home brewed ale.

“They attacked first.”  Desmond mutters in the quiet.  “Just computers, anyway.”

He closes the bandit’s eyes, his mouth, then rolls him over into a less embarrassing position after claiming the now ownerless belt and pouch for himself.  Bit of gold, purple gem, a sardine looking thing, and some lockpicks.

After a moment the assassin swaps his new longbow for the recurve the bandit leader had been using and springs back up the stairs to the chest.  It’s locked, and after going back down all the stairs to line up and double check all three bandit corpses Desmond comes to a realization.

Not a single bandit has a key to the damn chest.

What they do have is a combined shit-ton of lockpicks.

  
Squatting before the old chest, eyes burning eagle gold, Desmond gets to work.  It takes three lockpicks and several curses -when the second one broke the tip flew dangerously close to his eye- before the lock opens.  It is then that Desmond discovers a new facet of Eagle Vision and, yelping, tosses the now on fire _through no fault of his own_ book out of the tower where it promptly disintegrates into flickering embers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the last quarter of 2018 mentally and emotionally kicked my ass. It has been very hard to write, but as this chapter kept getting longer and longer I decided to cut it off and post instead of making people wait another month or two.


End file.
